This invention relates to reclaiming pollution from the environment and innovative devices that are designed to capture pollution from stormwater within a catch basin where water enters the city storm drain pipe system from a gutter.
There are many forms of stormwater pollution ranging from cigarette butts, to chemicals, to plastics, and the like. There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to selecting pollution capture devices. Many companies exist that produce and install large trash-capture devices, but only a few of those devises perform well in real world applications at a cost affordable to customers.
The improper disposal of cigarette filters and other types of trash is a significant problem, which contributes to an estimated annual $11.5 billion cost to clean up litter in the United States. It is not only a problem in the United States, but it is a global problem. Massive trash islands exist in oceans. The “Great Pacific Trash Gyre”, for example, is estimated to be twice the size of Texas, and includes floating plastic that is harming both marine animal and human food supplies. Picking up trash locally assists in solving this severe global problem.
Typically, stormwater accumulates on community streets and sidewalks as it rains or snows. To address this fact, roads are sloped to move water toward gutters along the roadway and sidewalk. These gutters may move the water down gradient to catch basins having storm grate coverings placed at intervals along the gutter system. The water flows through a storm grate or under the hood (which may also be known as a curb box or throat) of the catch basin and into the catch basin. These catch basins can be located immediately below the gutter or recessed under a sidewalk, such as a curb inlet box. There are large storm sewer pipes that terminate in the catch basin and direct the flow of stormwater down gradient into a larger network of storm sewer pipes. The storm sewer system gathers the water of a community and is sized to move the water from municipal infrastructure to a receiving body of water such as a stream, channel, reservoir, lake, or ocean. In most cases, the storm sewer system does not have filtration mechanisms to catch pollutants in the water before entering the receiving body of water. Consequently, most pollutants that make it into the catch basin either clog up the storm sewer pipe or are dumped into the stream, channel, reservoir, lake, or ocean.
Common catch basins and storm grates perform an inadequate job of capturing pollution from stormwater, because they are designed to prevent only large items such as tree limbs and tires from entering the storm drain system. Typically, once a smaller piece of litter makes it to the storm drain, there are very few ways to stop that litter from traveling to the nearest stream and ultimately the ocean.
Several companies produce and install large trash capture devices, but only a few of them perform well in real world applications at a cost affordable to most customers. Fresh Creek Technologies™ (FCT) from New Jersey, for example, was one of eleven contractors selected by the City of San Francisco to install trash capture devices in order to test new technologies and comply with a Bay Area self-imposed clean water initiative. FCT products are hidden away from the public in main line drainage pipes, expensive to install, and require large equipment to maintain. Also, FCT trash capture devices provide no means for water filtration of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or hydrocarbons.
Another company, United Storm Water Inc., for instance, has developed a product called the Drain Pac™ to capture pollution within a catch basin. It performs adequately in certain conditions, but it can be cumbersome to clean, install, and maintain. Furthermore, there are end-of-pipe trash collectors, such as the Stormceptor made by Imbrium®, that remove trash and debris from stormwater but this does not help alleviate clogging in storm sewer system upstream of the device.
In that regard, there is a need for a pollution capture device that captures or filters pollutants from stormwater within a catch basin and is easily removable from a catch basin so as to protect natural water ways and to promote conservation efforts. Furthermore, an apparatus that facilitates on-demand removal of such a device from a catch basin would be of interest to people who are assigned the responsibility of keeping stormwater clean and storm sewer systems from clogging.